


I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye I Say Hello

by Miri1984



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Multi, everyone lives au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23224525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: What if Sasha and Grizzop didn't get flung backwards in time, but instead just arrived a little bit early? How DOES a goblin cope with a week in a cage? What could a rogue and an alchemist POSSIBLY find to talk about? How does a former sad sea dad cope with being the jailor to a grey ball of righteous fury and will Wilde EVER read a Harrison Campbell novel?
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Oscar Wilde, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Sasha Racket, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 126
Kudos: 241





	1. Let's Go

They appeared back where they’d started, but everything had changed.

For starters, it was just her and Grizzop. She remembered her hand slipping free of Ed’s, although she wasn’t sure when she’d lost hold of Bi Ming. It had been so overwhelming, and just plain awful feeling that her memories wouldn’t sort themselves out. So when they landed in the dirt and she rolled onto her back to look up into the far too familiar red light of Rome, and heard only the movement of one other person beside her, it took her a moment or two to realise that wasn’t the only thing that was different.

“Wow, you’re back!” A face suddenly blocked out her view, and she repressed the urge to cry out in alarm. That wasn’t something Sasha Racket did, after all. “Why are there only two of you?”

“Einstein?” 

“Who else?” A hand was held out to her and she grasped it, getting to her feet and blinking muzzily. Grizzop was also getting up, his eyes wide. They both took in their surroundings, and then immediately started asking questions.

* * *

They sat in Einstein’s extremely professional looking camp while the old wizard did his best… or at least, made an attempt to explain. Sasha was still floundering around with the knowledge that over a year had passed since they’d gone, and Grizzop was obsessed with making sure the others weren’t just dead. Einstein, though, sounded confident.

“You just came through early, that’s all. There’s time magic all over you. Honestly you were very lucky! Planar shifting is weird, you could have ended up a couple of thousand years ago with all your bones on the outside. Saw that once happen to a third year transfiguration student. Bad business.”

“So Hamid and the others… they’ll be here soon?” Sasha asked.

“Probably. Maybe. Almost certainly maybe definitely. You know _one_ way you can muck up the planar shift spell is by keeping your eyes open you didn’t keep your eyes open did you because that can...”

Grizzop interrupted. “Einstein, where is Wilde? We need to get back to him.”

“Oh… he’s around. Doing things.” Einstein’s face closed off, suddenly.

“Where?”

“He works on his own these days, we _Harlequins…”_ Einstein’s pride in his position was evident in the emphasis he put on the “we” “don’t have a lot of contact with him and he’s too far away really for us to…”

“Einstein, I’m going to ask you this one more time, and if you don’t give me a straight answer, I’m going to shoot you in the kneecaps.”

“I’d really rather you…”

Grizzop unslung his bow and stood up, and Einstein sighed.

“Fine. Fine. He’s in Japan.”

“Good. Take us there.”

Sasha blinked. “Hang on. We need to wait for Hamid and Azu, we can’t just…”

Grizzop shook his head, violently.

“There isn’t time! We have just wasted a whole year and a half doing exactly what the horrible, evil, _awful_ people _wanted_ us to do. We got distracted, Sasha, and we _need_ to get back to _work_.”

“I just got blown up by my own _dagger_ Grizzop, can we at least…”

“I healed you! You’re fine! And if Hamid and Azu are going to turn up behind us then Einstein can bring them to us in Japan once they’re here…”

“This… this obsession with keeping on going isn’t healthy, you know! It’s the whole reason why we ended up in Rome without you in the first place, and we nearly _died_ there, twice! We can’t just run off and leave when…”

“Sasha, I don’t know if you were paying attention, but Einstein just said the world. Has. Ended! And I’m pretty sure it was partially our fault! Because we weren’t here to stop it! So now, we need to go find Wilde and we need to _fix it._ ”

“It’s not just Hamid and Azu, Grizzop, it’s Bi Ming and Ed and your _friend_ , don’t you care about your friend?”

She thought, for a second, she might have pushed him too far. Grizzop’s fists clenched at his side and the tips of his ears seemed to quiver and when he spoke again his voice was far lower. “Vesseek can look after themself. Just like you said Bi Ming could look after himself. Any way they’re with Hamid and Azu and Azu can look after _everyone.”_

Sasha sucked air in through her nose. It wasn’t that he was wrong. She could feel how different everything was, knew that they could potentially do something about it. But Grizzop just moved too _fast._

“Sasha _we need to go.”_

She rubbed her hands over her face, then let out a sigh.

“Can you take us to Wilde then?” she asked Einstein.

Einstein was still eyeing Grizzop’s bow. “Technically I _should_ be taking you to Curie…”

Grizzop _growled._ “Absolutely, categorically, am _not_ going to see _Curie._ I don’t deal with liars.”

“Oh hang on now I wouldn’t say that Curie is…”

“She lied to me and she lied to my goddess. I am not going to see her.” Grizzop stepped threateningly up to Einstein, who wasn’t really that much taller than him, and Sasha knew from experience, running through the streets of Rome with him on her back, that he was built like a child’s ragdoll underneath all that hair, even with the new survival gear. Grizzop could probably snap the man in half. Possibly just by looking at him.

Grizzop poked Einstein in the chest. “You’re going to take us to Wilde, and you’re going to take us to him _now.”_

“I thought you hated Wilde,” Sasha said, weakly.

“Oh yeah, most people do,” Einstein agreed, meeting Sasha’s eyes over the top of Grizzop’s head, apparently unfazed by the goblin’s obvious threat.

“You can hate someone and still work with them,” Grizzop said. “And _yes_ he’s a horrible person but at least he _doesn’t lie.”_

“I mean, I think he probably does, Grizzop,” Sasha said. “Quite a lot actually. We didn’t even know he was our handler until after the business in…”

“He didn’t lie to me, not about this. And we need to fix things. I’m not going to renegotiate a contract with a bunch of _Harlequins_.” He spat the word like a curse. “Wilde knows us, and we know him, and that’s got to be good enough, right Sasha?”

She really didn’t know what to do when Grizzop got like this. Not even Hamid could talk him down when he was in full flight (and really, a lot of that was because when Grizzop was in full flight it was about something stupid that Hamid had done so she really didn’t blame him). All those years of training with Barret and Bi Ming and Eldarion and Rakevine hadn’t given her the skills to even begin to try to talk down a small, determined, _furious_ Paladin. “I... suppose?”

Grizzop flashed her a grin and gave a little hop. “Good. Great. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s _go.”_

Einstein sighed. “I’m probably going to get into a lot of trouble for this,” he said.

“You’ll be fine. Just teleport away from it.”

“Oh I intend to.” Einstein stood up, and held out his hands. “Take my hands. Let’s get going then.”

Sasha reached out and took one of Einstein’s leathery, wrinkled hands in hers as gently as possible. Grizzop gripped his other one, then offered his other to Sasha. She took it, and Einstein took a deep breath.

And they said goodbye to Rome.


	2. Capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Einstein is reluctant. Sasha can't keep up. Japan is wet.

It was raining in Japan. Grizzop was used to rain, but the sheer amount of it falling right now was unsettling, a steady, heavy curtain, thick and suffocating, far too reminiscent of  _ too dark too tight to wet rushing flowing screaming _ for him to be comfortable.

“Wilde and his team have set up in the inn,” Einstein said. “And they really don’t like being surprised.”

“Define surprised,” Grizzop said. 

Einstein rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you know, there are protocols that we’ve set in place to search for the infection and I’m really supposed to call ahead to her and then maybe put you into quarantine for a week while we…”

“Did everything just come to a total stop while we were away?” Grizzop asked.

“A bit. Yes. You know you need to understand that a  _ lot  _ happened and…”

“And no one did anything to fix it. Yes. I’m getting that impression.”

Einstein looked miserable and Grizzop felt a small surge of guilt at that. Whatever had happened to them in the planar shift, it hadn’t been Einstein’s fault, after all. 

_ You didn’t keep your eyes open, did you? _

He swallowed.

“You better get back to wait for Hamid, Einstein,” Grizzop said, softening his tone, squaring his shoulders and walking towards the inn. Sasha moved silently beside him, a comforting presence, a reminder that they had a job to do and they were qualified to do it.

“He’s not the same person you knew before!” Einstein said. 

“Good!” Grizzop said, and continued to walk.

“It’s all right Einstein,” Grizzop heard Sasha say. “We know what we’re doing.”

“He’ll just kill you if you go near him armed!” Einstein shouted after them.

“He’ll  _ try,”  _ Grizzop said.

He could handle one strung out bard. He glanced up at Sasha, whose face was set and determined, and amended that.

_ They  _ could handle Wilde. No matter what the world had done to him. 

The inn was all but deserted. Grizzop could tell, just by looking around at the few patrons, that this wasn’t a happy place. Folk were shabbily dressed, and looked thinner than they should, and the innkeeper eyed them with naked fear in his eyes. 

“Wotcher,” Grizzop said, and the innkeeper looked at him blankly. “You can probably guess I don’t speak Japanese. Do you speak Dutch?” He switched to Dutch, then Goblin, but the innkeeper’s face remained blank. Grizzop drummed his fingers on the too-tall counter and sucked at his teeth for a moment, before glancing around the room and saying in a loud voice, “Hello! Paladin of Artemis here, on a mission. We’re looking for  _ Oscar Wilde, _ ” he drew out the name so that folk wouldn’t have any trouble hearing it as separate from the stream of English before it. Behind him he heard Sasha sigh and he turned to her. “What?” 

“You don’t just… announce what you want like that, Grizzop.”

“How else do you think we’re going to find him?”

“I don’t know, I could have snuck off and done a retcon or…”

The innkeeper, however, had raised an eyebrow at the mention of the name, and nodded, beckoning to them. 

“Do you know where he is?” Grizzop asked.

“He doesn’t understand you Grizzop. He’s just trying to show you where to go.”

Grizzop sighed. “Come on then.”

They followed the man into a back room, small and warm, and the innkeeper indicated that they should help themselves to a drink. Grizzop, who hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since Rome, moved to the decanter immediately.

“It’s probably poisoned,” Sasha said, and Grizzop looked back at her, scowling in the doorway, poised as though waiting for an attack.

Grizzop blinked and looked at the glass in his hand, then at the decanter on the counter. He sighed and put it back. 

“So we just wait then?”

Sasha gave him one of her half smiles. “I know you don’t like it.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and poked his tongue out at her. Her smile widened, and then she pushed off the doorframe and started to cast her eyes around the room.

Grizzop wasn’t that familiar with inns as a rule, and this was an inn in Japan - a place he’d never been. The seats were all close to the ground and the table in the centre of the room was arranged so that a decently sized human could kneel at it. Part of him liked it - the world was too often arranged around bigger people, but he was resentful of having to wait. Humans and bigger folk  _ always _ wanted him to wait. They wasted so much time, with procedure and protocol and paperwork and fiddly stupid niceties. 

Sasha was examining the room the way she did, sharp eyes and careful movements, and Grizzop tried to follow her logic, but ended up distracted by the paper thin walls with hanging paintings of cherry blossoms and mountains, new styles and a new culture he’d never encountered before.

New experiences. 

_ Those _ were never wasted. Those were to be tucked away in his mind, with friendships and lovers and successful hunts - memories to be treasured for the short time that he would have them.

“What do you think this is then, Grizzop?” he heard Sasha say, and turned from contemplating a black and white painting of a waterfall that was as much empty space as it was ink, somehow still managing to capture the essence of falling water, of movement and nature…

“What?” he asked. She was knelt down near the table in the middle of the room. He moved forward, catching a glimpse of metal underneath the table, a hint of some sort of mechanism. “Did they bolt it to the floor? Seems weird.”

He reached out a hand to touch it and heard Sasha draw in a sharp breath. “Grizzop don’t…”

There was a click, and the table and the floor around it dropped away. He was vaguely aware that he fell alone, that Sasha, with her lightning reflexes, had managed to jump out of the way of the floor disappearing - that same breathtaking skill she’d displayed at the coffin trap in Damascus.

It didn’t help him, though, as he dropped like a stone onto a rough floor scattered with rushes, jarring his leg and elbow hard enough that he cried out in pain.

Above him, he could see the dim light of the room they’d been in, and could hear the sounds of several pairs of rushing feet. 

“Grizzop are you all right?”

He winced, and rolled over to his front, testing the bones in his wrist even as his ears flicked with the knowledge that Sasha was being  _ pursued.  _ “I’m fine, just run!”

“I can’t leave you here…”

“You can come back for me. Get out of here.”

The feet were approaching more rapidly now, but he couldn’t make out exactly what was happening in the room above any longer as the creaking, wrenching noise of the trapdoor that had deposited him in this… cell… was working again, wrenching itself shut slowly. Grizzop couldn’t hope to reach it in time to pull himself up and out again - he was far too short - it didn’t stop him from trying though, desperately leaping upwards, trying to hook the corner of his bow over the retreating mechanism.

He fell back down again and let out a stream of Dutch curses, interspersed with the few Goblin ones he knew best.

There were no shouts coming from above, no sounds of movement in the darkness around him. He gave his eyes a few seconds to adjust, then sat up.

The cell was about the right size to hold maybe two humans at a time, and there was a cot, not directly under the trapdoor, he noted, wincing a little as he tested his weight on one leg. 

“I’m going to murder Einstein,” he muttered, getting to his feet.

“That hardly seems fair,” a voice came from the shadows of the room. Grizzop squinted, looking into the corner through bars that were covered with mesh. A tall figure leaned against one wall, familiar as the voice that had come from it.

“Wilde!”

“Grizzop.” The name on Wilde’s lips was heavy with something - dread? Sadness? Anger? Grizzop was too furious himself to try to parse it.

“Wilde you let me out of here  _ right now.” _

The figure stepped into the fading light from the crack around the closing trapdoor and Grizzop had a second to see his expression, flat, cold and hard, a brief moment to see something wrong about his face - there was a shadow on one cheek? A tattoo? Blood? - before he gave a sharp nod and turned on his heel, stalking out of the room.

“Wilde!”

The man did not turn. Grizzop flung himself at the cold bars of the cell, grabbing them with both hands and rattling them as he shouted.

“I will  _ shoot you in the kneecaps, on my word as a Paladin of Artemis!” _

There was no response.

Grizzop was left in darkness, the only sound the sound of Wilde’s retreating footsteps, and the sharp clang of the metallic trapdoor as it firmly shut above him.


	3. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha Runs. Grizzop and Zolf are Not Instant Friends.

Sasha was no stranger to running, and thanks to the past few months, she was no stranger to wilderness either. At least here, in Japan, she didn’t have to worry about boiling and freezing by turns as she flitted in and out of the shade. The rain was weird, though. You didn’t get rain in Other London - or if you did you bloody well hoped it was just water dripping on you - and she was hampered by mud and wet fronds of plants she didn’t recognise hitting her in the face.

She was still a lot more stealthy than one of her pursuers, in any case. There had been two of them, in the room where Grizzop had fallen, and she’d had to somersault over them and crash through the taproom to get away. Not her most graceful exit, but at least it  _ was  _ an exit, and she was fast enough (not as fast as she used to be, no, but fast  _ enough)  _ to get into the trees and away from all signs of civilisation in a few minutes.

She slowed down once she was surrounded by trees, listening intently for sounds of pursuit - and she heard them easily enough. At least one of them was clumsy and armoured - she would have been able to hear them from a mile away. The other one had either decided not to follow or was more worrisomely silent. 

Despite the heavy foliage - some sort of weird green wood that sounded hollow when she clipped it with a dagger - there wasn’t actually anywhere suitable to hide. The land around the inn was flat and continued in all directions. There had been something of a road leading past the inn, but Sasha wasn’t stupid enough to travel on it. Instead she kept it to her left and followed its general direction, doubling back a few times to check for pursuers.

She wanted to go straight back to the inn and bust Grizzop out. She wanted Azu to blaze forth in righteous godly fury and punch that innkeeper in the face, Hamid to fireball it to the ground. She wanted Zolf to…

Sasha squashed that thought down right where it belonged. Zolf wasn’t going to do anything for her - for them. Not any more.

After about an hour of this, she spotted her second pursuer. The odd green plants had thinned out and there were some sturdier trees with knotted trunks and what looked like blossoms on their branches. Once she found a few that were strong enough to support her weight, she slipped up into one like a panther through a black felt factory and lay amidst the blossoms, waiting, watching.

Finally she saw him.

There was something familiar about the way he moved. He was good - silent and competent, but she got the impression he wasn’t enjoying the outdoors any more than she had been, with the way he shrank away from the touch of leaves and foliage, the hunch of his shoulders. He looked sulky, she thought. 

Tough for some, she supposed. 

She dropped on him from above and knocked him unconscious with a heavy blow to the back of the head. She slipped a dagger from her sheath and was preparing to slit his throat, when she hesitated. 

They hadn’t killed them, at the inn. They could have. But it had been an elaborate ruse to  _ capture  _ them. Grizzop hadn’t falling into a spike pit, he’d been fine down there. They were probably going to interrogate him, press him for information. She remembered Prague, and smiled grimly to herself. They’d  _ try  _ to interrogate him.

And perhaps if they knew she was still out here they’d be more likely to keep Grizzop alive and healthy, a bid to draw her in for a rescue. Bait. Collateral.

Anything she could do to keep Grizzop from getting hurt before she could bust him out would be worth it.

She wasn’t going to lose anyone else.

She dropped the man back into the muck of the path and ran. By the time he came to, what with the rain and the muck, there was no way he’d be able to trace her. 

She’d have time to come up with a plan.

* * *

Grizzop stared after the retreating back of Wilde for at least a minute. This was… this was all wrong. Sure Einstein had tried to warn them that Wilde wasn’t the same but the way he’d looked at Grizzop, the tone of his voice…

“You’ll get used to it,” another voice said, from a corner of the room Grizzop hadn’t looked. Low and lilting. Unfamiliar.

He whipped his head around and focused to see someone sitting in a chair off to the side of the stairway Wilde had disappeared up. A dwarf, that much was obvious even though he was sitting down, a book open on his lap. Grizzop could make out white hair even in his colourless night vision, eyes darkly shadowed by strong brows, a braided beard.

Grizzop tilted his head.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Zolf Smith,” the dwarf said. Grizzop flicked his ears.

“Huh,” he said. “You gonna let me out?”

“What do you think?”

“You going to tell me what’s going on? Why I’m locked up? Why Wilde’s being… well kind of less annoying to be honest but  _ weird?” _

“Einstein didn’t fill you in?”

“We,” Grizzop said distinctly, “were in a  _ hurry.” _

Zolf snorted. Grizzop bristled. “The world needs us  _ now  _ he told us enough that I wanted to help and the last person who helped me was Oscar Wilde and now he’s locked me in a cage and I am  _ understandably a little bit annoyed about that.” _

“He said you were prickly.”

“He  _ said I was prickly?” _

The dwarf - Zolf - ran a hand through his hair. “Look. Things are complicated and you’re not going anywhere for a while so why don’t you let me fill you in on the things you need to know. Maybe at the end of it you’ll understand why you’ve been locked up.”

“Maybe at the end of it I’ll shoot you  _ and  _ Wilde in the kneecaps.”

Zolf gives a humourless grin at that, hand straying to his leg and the connections suddenly click into place.

“Oh.  _ You’re  _ the cleric of Poseidon? The one who left Sasha and Hamid in Prague!”

The dwarf winced, then shut the book in his lap, probably more forcefully than he needed. 

Grizzop had obviously hit a nerve. “They were better off without me,” he said, almost too soft for Grizzop to hear.

“Probably. Yeah. But I guess you can say sorry to them when they come back and bust me out of here.”

Zolf pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, they can’t do that. We have a procedure in place. You might be infected with…”

Grizzop bashed a fist into his breastplate. “I’m a  _ paladin of Artemis you great watery git.” _

“That doesn’t  _ matter!” _

Grizzop snapped. He still had his bow in his hand and he grabbed an arrow and nocked it, pointing it straight at the dwarf.

“You can’t shoot me,” Zolf sounded weary. “There’s mesh between the bars and…”

Grizzop snarled and called on holy fire to ignite the arrow tip. Artemis would let him shut this idiot up and get back out to Sasha. Artemis would  _ make  _ him understand. Artemis would…

Artemis…

He felt his hands go numb with a sudden, awful realisation.

Artemis wasn’t there.

He lowered his bow, feeling utterly, dreadfully,  _ completely _ alone.

“What have you done to me?” he whispered, feeling tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

_ Artemis. _

“Anti magic field,” Zolf said, and he sounded sympathetic. “It was difficult to put in place, and expensive. But necessary.”

Grizzop swallowed. He wouldn’t cry in front of this… person. He refused.

He swallowed again. Focus. Discipline.

Make her  _ proud, Grizzop. _ “Okay,” he said, ignoring the shake in his own voice. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“I’ve been trying,” Zolf said, and let out a sigh as Grizzop growled under his breath. “I’m sorry. I  _ know  _ this is hard. But it’s hard for all of us, and there’s good reasons for it.”

“They better be,” Grizzop said. “Start talking.” 


	4. Wotcher

_ Stupid mud.  _

Sasha’s boots were good boots, sturdier and more expensive than pretty much anything she’d ever owned before she started working with Hamid and that, but even they couldn’t compete against the relentless downpour that soaked the trees and ground everywhere here. Her socks were wet and her feet squelched whenever she walked, the sound more offensive to her than the frankly, manky feeling that her feet were enduring, even though she told herself no one would be able to hear her over the drumming of the rain on the trees…

_ Stupid trees. _

She had been walking for another hour, next to the road, assuming that it would actually lead somewhere. That was how roads worked, right? Even out in the country side no one would be stupid enough to put a road in that didn’t  _ lead  _ anywhere.

Right?

_ Stupid road. _

She was beginning to consider looping back and taking on the guards that were no doubt surrounding the inn where Grizzop was when she saw buildings in the distance. She hesitated, wondering if it was even worth heading to another town, but she was exhausted and she needed supplies and time to think of a way to get Grizzop out. Maybe she could contact someone to help, maybe there was a way to get a message to… she didn’t know… one of the temples? Surely the Artemis lot would come help if they knew Grizzop was in trouble. Did they even have the same gods here? Maybe she could get word to a meritocrat, although if Wilde was the one who’d caught Grizzop maybe the  _ meritocrats  _ were the ones who couldn’t be trusted and she’d have to…

She let out a sigh, and kept walking towards the village. If they had anything resembling a temple there then she could at least ask for help, or a clean pair of socks. That would have to be her first step.

This would probably only count as the second village Sasha had ever been to - if you counted the one in France after the channel crossing, and from what she could gather, this one looked… worse. There were signs that there’d been fighting - the most interesting ones of these the scorch marks she found in the paving near the simple wooden archway at its entrance. They were the kind of scorch marks that would be made with bombs, Sasha thought, as she crouched down to look at them.

There was no one in the single street of the village - she supposed the rain was keeping everyone inside - but there was also no indication that there was a temple, or an inn, or any place she could go to ask for help of any kind. She was about to give it up as a bad job and find somewhere to camp and think of another plan when there was the distinct sound of an explosion coming from a little ways behind her, a larger shopfront she’d passed while she was looking for more religious things. She turned to see smoke billowing out of a window, and a door opening, two figures, one very tall, one very short, bundling out into the street.

The taller one was bent over, leaning on their knees, and Sasha  _ knew  _ that sound, that exasperated, exhilarated laugh - she remembered doing that with Brock, after they’d escaped over the rooftops, the thrill of something dangerous avoided, the exuberant realisation of having tested the limits of survival and the knowledge that they had  _ won. _

The smaller figure wasn’t making the same noises, but also didn’t seem particularly distressed that their house…? Shop? Was now billowing smoke from every window and the open door. Sasha made a swift decision and trotted up to them.

“Wotcher,” she said. “Er. Need any help?”

#

Grizzop had sat down, eventually, although Zolf had actually wondered if the goblin was even capable of it, so tense and ramrod straight he’d been, aiming his bow at him, ready to call down the wrath of his god…

Zolf could remember that feeling and he resented that memory and it was hard not to hold the goblin’s faith against him, even as his heart ached for how much it obviously hurt him to have that link severed.

“So you want me to stay in a cage, for a  _ week,”  _ Grizzop said.

“It’s the only way we can be sure,” Zolf said.

“And the cults aren’t…”

“The cults have had the same rate of infection as everyone else. Wilde thinks it’s because they’re not… evil per se, when the infection takes them, they think whatever they’re doing is in service to their gods.”

“That’s… that’s  _ stupid.  _ Artemis would never… I mean maybe Poseidon or Zeus but Artemis…”

Zolf shrugged. He’d spent months after Prague reconciling himself to the knowledge that the gods were just a bunch of petulant children with too much power, and he wasn’t about to get into a theological argument with a paladin, not now. He was too  _ tired. _

“How do I know  _ you  _ aren’t the infected ones?” Grizzop asked then, and Zolf blinked.

“We’ve been fighting against this for over a year,” Zolf said. 

“You and Wilde?”

“And Curie and Einstein and the rest of the Harlequins…”

“Ugh,” Grizzop’s face twisted in disgust at the mention of the Harlequins. “No wonder you’re doing such a bad job of it…”

“You hardly have the right to criticise our efforts when you were lost in Rome for…”

“Can I talk to Wilde? At least? Get his version of events?”

Zolf sucked in a slow breath. Wilde hadn’t ever mentioned Grizzop, save in passing when Zolf pressed him about what had happened to Sasha and Hamid, but Zolf knew him, knew that he’d cared about the goblin as much as he’d cared about the others. 

“He won’t talk to you,” Zolf said. “Not until he knows you’re clear of the infection.”

“Why not?”

“Because the last time he did that he got hurt. We’ve all… been hurt by this." He took a long, slow breath. "Nothing’s the same and nothing ever will be.”

“I can  _ help,”  _ Grizzop said then, so earnest and sure and righteous. What in the depths had possessed a goblin to become a follower of one of the cults? The few goblins he'd met on his travels had been secretive and suspicious, keeping to their burrows with their clutches, so insular as to be almost unheard of, but Grizzop was... so bright and determined.

A good paladin. A good person. He must have taken good care of Sasha and Hamid when Zolf left. Must have cared for them just as much as Zolf did. Zolf felt himself warming to the goblin, and opened his mouth to say something reassuring...

...Remembered Wilde, blood running down his face to mingle with tears, blank eyed and wooden.

Betrayed.

He let out a grunt instead. “Not yet you can’t,” he said, picking up his book. “Settle down. Get some rest. Wilde will be back later for inspection, I suggest you don’t talk to him, it’ll only be frustratin’.”

“Thought you said things were different now,” Grizzop muttered as he flopped on the cot, and Zolf repressed the twitch of his lips that would have been a smile.

_ Don’t get attached. Not again. _

He had a horrible feeling it was too late.


	5. Could be Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf and Oscar have a chat about the difficulties of confining a goblin. Cel and Sasha find common ground. There may be eels.

Zolf was good at guard duty. Oscar wondered if it was simply a factor of his age - Oscar’s father had often chided him with “With age comes patience, boy,” although Oscar suspected the man was actually younger than Zolf when he’d first started to say it. In any case he wasn’t expecting any trouble when he sent Barnes down to relieve him in his vigil over whatever had decided to take Grizzop’s face and was somewhat surprised to hear the distinct clomp of his boots outside his office door shortly afterwards.

“You didn’t say he was this much trouble,” Zolf said, pouring himself a brandy from the cabinet.

Oscar frowned. “It’s not…”

Zolf downed a glass and poured himself another. “I know, I know, it’s not him any way, accordin’ to you.”

“It’s better if we…”

Zolf put the glass in front of Oscar, rather than downing it. “Is it though?” he said.

“Zolf… if this is about…”

“The way Carter explained it, the way she moved, the stuff she could do… Wilde…”

Wilde clenched his jaw. “It’s not Sasha, Zolf. If you let yourself believe it you’re just going to be disappointed.” He touched his scar. “Or worse.”

Zolf just stared at him for a moment, then glanced down at the brandy glass and back up at Oscar. He sighed. Reached out and sipped at the alcohol delicately. 

Zolf stood there, stubborn as always. “It ain’t healthy, Wilde,” he said. “You say it makes it easier, but pretending someone’s dead,  _ believing  _ someone’s dead - you’ve got to…”

“I don’t  _ have  _ to do anything,” Oscar said, and he forced his voice icy. “If what’s down there gives you too much trouble, Barnes and Carter can handle watches for a couple of days.”

“Wilde…”

“Do I need to rearrange the schedule?” Oscar asked. Zolf’s nostrils flared and he stared hard at Oscar. Then let out a breath and shook his head. 

“I can deal with him. But he’s feisty. Doesn’t like being stuck in one place. I reckon he’ll start lashing out earlier than the others ever did.”

_ If it is him I wouldn’t expect anything less,  _ Oscar thought, then clenched the glass in his hand so tight it was a miracle it didn’t shatter.

_ Don’t do it to yourself. Not again. _

“Let me know if you need any help. Physical inspections could be… difficult, given Gr… the goblin’s skin tone. I want you present for them. Dark vision might pick up more than just lamplight.”

“Fine.”

Zolf turned to leave and Oscar found himself opening his mouth to say something, a warning, a reminder…

But there wasn’t any point. Zolf did things his way and Oscar did them his, and trying to change the dwarf’s mind was a losing battle. One that Oscar lost quite frequently.

Oscar touched his scar again as Zolf left.

* * *

The small one - a gnome, Sasha realised, with a pang of worry for Bi Ming that she quickly suppressed - noticed Sasha first and started pulling at the coatsleeve of the taller one, babbling in a language Sasha didn’t understand.

She held up her hands to show they were empty (they couldn’t know that she had wrist sheathes on, fully loaded and ready to go if they made any kind of threatening moves) and tried to put on a friendly face. She knew she wasn’t great at those, not really, but she’d been learning a bit from Hamid.

“Er… hi? My name’s Sasha… it looks like um… you had an accident or somethin’?”

The taller one grinned up at her. “English?” they asked and Sasha nodded. “Okay… good er. Yeah I can remember that. A bit. You’ll have to correct me if I get stuff wrong it’s been a few… decades? A few decades. At least.” They turned to the gnome and babbled in that other language for a minute, and the gnome’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her again. 

Sasha held out a hand to help them to their feet. The tall one took it, but the gnome didn’t. 

“Sasha,” Sasha said again.

“Oh. Hi. I’m Cel. and this is Jasper. You look… wet.”

Sasha glanced up at the sky, then back at them. “Funny that,” she said. “You two look… exploded.”

Cel grinned even wider. “Just a little bit! I know what I did wrong though and the smoke should have cleared out by now. Do you want to come in? Have some tea or… something Jasper do we have tea? Oh you can’t understand me when I speak English so uh…  _ ocha wa arimasu…” _

Sasha shoved her hands in her pockets and followed behind the two as they chattered to each other, not entirely sure whether she was doing the right thing. But she felt exposed, out here on the street. If the people who’d taken Grizzop prisoner really wanted to hunt her down and catch her, they’d almost certainly come this way eventually. 

Hopefully, by then, she’d be ready.

Inside it was still smoky, but what Sasha had originally thought was some sort of bomb was in fact an elaborate system of glass pipes and containers, some of which were pouring out black smoke, some of which were shattered and some of which contained bubbling potion like liquids. Sasha recognised a couple of the reagents she used in her own bombs and moved towards them curiously, but the gnome - Jasper - got between her and the table she was heading for and shook his head, looking stern.

She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets.

“Sorry mate,” she said. “I just thought I recognised…”

“You’re familiar with alchemy?” Cel said, turning to her.

“Well.. no, not as such I mean. I make bombs sometimes. But that’s it.”

“You make bombs! So do I! We should compare notes! But you’re still really wet. Sorry it’s hard to remember what I’m doing sometimes.” They said something to Jasper, who gave Sasha another hard look, but then retreated to a back room, as Cel fiddled with bits and pieces on the benchtop. They muttered under their breath and some of the smoke immediately dissipated, then rummaged in a crate for a bit before coming out with a small vial. 

“Here,” they said. “Should warm you up a bit at least until you can get dry naturally.”

Sasha didn’t move to take it. Cel proffered it again, and Sasha looked at it, then back up at Cel. “Uh… no offense, but…”

Cel hesitated, then nodded. “Oh. Right, right yes. We’ve only just met and there are dangerous people about - some of them very close actually, hence the reason for all the bombs and smoke since I’m trying to work out a way to keep the village safe since Shoin’s been sending more of his…”

“What do you know about the village back along the road?” Sasha interrupted. 

“Mmm?”

“The one with the inn. It’s couple of hours back that way…” Sasha waved her arm to indicate where she meant.

Cel looked a little confused, although they didn’t seem to mind being interrupted. “I haven’t been there. I think Aiko’s husband’s family were originally from there but most of the folk here are too busy to go visiting to other villages especially at the moment with Shoin’s goons… lads, I’ve started calling them, because they really are very lad like, or maybe blokes? I can’t remember the right English word any way they’ve been raiding the village on and off now for months and…”

It was getting pretty obvious to Sasha that she couldn’t afford to wait for Cel to stop talking if she actually wanted to find anything out before the end of the century. And Cel didn’t seem to mind her being rude.

“Do you know someone called Oscar Wilde?”

Cel shrugged, then shook their head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

Sasha let out a breath. “Right,” she said. “Right. Fine. I guess I’ll have to go back by myself then.”

Cell had started clearing up the broken glass as they talked and Jasper returned, with a tray that held what Sasha guessed was tea, as well as some smaller nibbly things.

Sasha was sure she could smell eel, and her stomach gave an embarrassingly loud rumble.

“Oh hey… yeah I asked Jasper to make some food for us, figured you might be hungry as well as wet but if you think I’ve poisoned it (I haven’t, by the way) I’ll eat some first? And then we can sit down and you can tell me all about this Oscar Wilde and maybe we can share bomb making techniques, because it’s always great to get a different perspective on things that are…”

Sasha sat on the crate that Cel indicated and nibbled on something made of rice and yes… definitely eel. On balance, she thought to herself, as Cel described the intricacies of a chemical process that Sasha could almost follow, things could definitely be worse. 

Probably, any way.


	6. Fictional Interludes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf tries to recruit a fan, Grizzop isn't impressed. Sasha Does A Stab.

Grizzop paced. 

The cell was large enough that he could take four steps in each direction before he hit the bars and had to turn around. He could draw and loose his bowstring without knocking into the cot or the bucket or the chair if he stood  _ there,  _ which  _ entirely coincidentally  _ meant he was mock shooting Zolf where Zolf sat in his chair, reading his damned books and being a grumpy, silent asshole.

“I can lend you one of these if you like,” Zolf said.

“Not really one for books,” Grizzop replied. 

“Yeah the Artemis lot always were more for action.”

“Not really Poseidon’s thing either.”

“One of the reasons we broke up. No taste in literature.”

“Wait. What?”

Zolf looked a little bit put out at that, and Grizzop remembered that he’d said they weren’t sure if the… infected people could somehow communicate with each other without speaking. So. Any little snippets about Zolf that he could manage to glean would be the equavlent of spying, on his part, at least in Zolf's mind.

Still, that sounded like something you could only do with magic to Grizzop, though, and he was locked here, in an anti magic cell, cut off from Artemis…

_Lady..._

No, he wasn't going to think about that. She was there... just... out of reach. “You broke  _ up  _ with Posiedon?”

“I don’t worship him no more. So yeah, I guess.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Grizzop let air out his nose. “Fine. Whatever. So you’re not a cleric any more then?”

“Actually…” Zolf shook his head. “No. We’re not doing this. If you want a book to read I can lend you a book. If you want to play a game of… I don’t know, cards or something? Or chess. I think Wilde’s got a chess board upstairs somewhere…”

Grizzop sighed, remembering his card game with Sasha, in Damascus. More than a year ago, now. “Give me one of the books then,” he said, and Zolf actually smiled at that, a small twitch of his lips, before reaching under his chair and pulling out a selection of novels - dogeared and well read ones.

“So would you say you were more a fan of romance, or action?” Zolf asked, and Grizzop nearly buried his head in his hands.

* * *

“So you’re telling me that you were in Rome! That’s incredible! I’d love to go there but, well, there’s reasons why it’s not advisable for anyone with regular biology or even irregular biology to be close to so much magical fallout without precautions plus which travel is kind of difficult when you’re… well never mind that it’s just hard to get to any way these days, you know and…”

“Yeah we were in Rome and now we’re meant to be here helping Wilde except that the place we went to tried to trap us -  _ did  _ trap my friend and now I don’t know if they’re on the right side any more.”

Cel looked at Sasha, uncharacteristically silent for a moment, chin resting in their hand, and blinked. “You want to help your friend,” they said. 

“Yeah,” Sasha said. “I want to help him. And I want to find out why Wilde - if it was Wilde - attacked us. Cos, well he used to trust us. And I guess I used to trust him too. And Grizzop’s a good person - he’s a paladin of Artemis and he doesn’t deserve… any of the stuff that’s happened to him really. He didn’t even want to go to Rome. I mean, neither did I but he  _ really  _ didn’t and…” Sasha stopped, took a deep breath and realised suddenly how tightly coiled she was, how alone she felt.

“It’s okay,” Cel said. “I get it. You want to help your friend. And I think I can help you, if you want? I can help you,” Cel said. “I mean. If you want me to. I can help you help him. So long as…”

Whatever Cel was going to say was lost in a sudden shout from outside. The front door to the shop banged open and a terrified Japanese woman started gesticulating and talking to Cel, who stood up, expression hardening. 

“Now?” they said, and stomped to a corner, picking up a frankly alarming looking crossbow. 

“You might want to stay here,” they said to Sasha. Sasha shook her head.

“Not bloomin’ likely,” she said, and activated her wrist sheathes. Cel’s eyes lit on the two daggers that were revealed and they grinned, a feral expression that Sasha immediately warmed to.

“Okay, right. Should have remembered you’ve been fighting for…”

“Most of my life,” Sasha said, grimly, and Cel’s face went serious for a second before they nodded. 

“Come on then.”

* * *

Grizzop managed almost an hour of reading before he was up and pacing again. Zolf sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Wilde will be down for inspections in the morning,” he said. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

Grizzop had taken off his breastplate, even set aside his bow when he started to read, and he pushed one sleeve of his undershirt up, exposing a lean, muscled, dark skinned goblin arm. “What’s it look like?” he asked, softly.

Zolf eyed Grizzop’s arm. It  _ would  _ be difficult to see the veins if they turned up - he was so dark grey he was almost black, especially in the dim light of the cell. Wilde would have no hope seeing them without a good deal more light than they usually had down here. And to be honest they’d probably end up relying on the slightly lighter skin on the insides of Grizzop’s ears, to be certain. His eyes traveled up to them, then back down to Grizzop, who was still staring at his arms.

“We’ll know if we see them,” Zolf said, gruffly. “Don’t beat yourself up looking for them, it’ll only make you feel worse.”

“You’ve had to do this before?”

“Every time we go on a mission.”

“But it’s such a waste of  _ time.” _

“All of Europe has fallen, Grizzop. It’s not a waste of time if it means we can survive to fight it.”

Grizzop sat on the cot, more heavily this time. Reached for the book and started flipping through pages. 

Zolf couldn’t help himself. “Do you like it?”

“Jennifer needs to wake up and smell which way the wind’s blowing and Roderick is a pining idiot,” Grizzop said.

“So that’s a…”

“It’s better than staring at your grumpy face for hours on end, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Zolf supposed that would have to be enough.

* * *

There were four of them, two holding sacks of what looked like flour, two arguing with another man in front of what looked like a regular house. Sasha couldn’t make out the words but could very much recognise a shakedown when she saw one. She glanced at Cel, who was loading up the crossbow. “I’m gonna get behind them,” she said softly. Cel raised an eyebrow and nodded, and Sasha slipped into the shadows near the house where the lads (or blokes) were arguing with the villagers.

She heard Cel shout something in Japanese and the four thugs spun around to face them, shouting something back in return, and Sasha struck.

The first thug went down with a knife in the back, the second started to scream when Cel fired their crossbow. The third and fourth startled and dropped the bags they were carrying, one of them spinning around to see Sasha neatly removing her knife and grinning at him.

He gaped. She struck.

By the time he’d hit the ground the other one had a crossbow bolt through the eye.

The villagers stared at Sasha as though she was a ghost. She shrugged. “Aight, mates,” she said. Their blank looks didn't change, and Sasha scuffed a foot, feeling a little sheepish. Cel was grim faced, examining the bodies of the men.

“Shoin’s,” they said. “Again. That’s the third time this month.” They rattled off some Japanese to the villagers, who bowed and babbled back in obvious gratitude, then started methodically stripping the corpses. Obviously this was something they’d dealt with before.

“Who is this Shoin guy any way?” Sasha asked, and Cel’s eyes went haunted.

“Not who I thought he was,” Cel said. “But that’s not important. The important thing is, if what you’re saying is true about this Wilde guy the village is under threat from two different directions now. Can’t be having with that. Never fight a war on two fronts, you know how it is.”

Sasha didn’t. “If you help me free Grizzop,” she said, “we’ll  _ both _ help you deal with Shoin.”

Cel grinned. “I like you, Sasha,” they said and Sasha felt herself grin back. 


	7. Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zolf is fine. Grizzop is fine. Wilde is fine! SO IS SASHA. THEY'RE ALL FINE.

Oscar Wilde went through his morning ablutions with meticulous care. Even now, at the edge of the end of the world, there were forms, and while he might not have the array of products or the small luxuries with which he would have surrounded himself in his London apartment or his Paris lodgings, there was a comfort to them.

There was a comfort to the drag of the brush through his re-growing hair, the slide of his razor over cheeks (not as smooth as it used to be, but he was accustomed to the scar now, and navigated it without the nicks and cuts that frustrated him so when it was first extant). He dressed - simply these days, with none of the accents of colour that he had so delighted in back in London.

He didn’t think of what was waiting for him in the basement.

Zolf was sitting in his chair, book open on his lap and Grizz… the thing in the cage was also reading. Something of a surprise, and one that Oscar filed away as a possible sign of infection.

Zolf got up as he entered and the thing in the cage, on hearing the noise, looked up as well, one ear flicking in a gesture that achingly familiar. 

“Wotcher Wilde,” he said. 

_Gods it sounded like him._

“Strip,” Wilde said, and saw the thing in the cage glance at Zolf, who nodded.

“You knew this was comin,” he said softly, and Oscar had to restrain himself from looking at Zolf, at warning him again. Zolf hadn’t even known Grizzop, but he was too quick to care, that was one of his biggest failings (and greatest strengths). It would hurt so much more this time, when it went wrong. _And Sasha was still out there…_

The thing in the cage stripped without a word, ears now flat against his skull and uncharacteristically silent. 

Another tick in the box of this not being who they claimed to be. 

He turned at Zolf’s gentle directions. They kept close eyes on his ears, on the delicate, paler skin there, but there were no obvious signs. 

Oscar nodded at Zolf, turned on his heel, and left, ignoring the sounds of what looked like Grizzop getting dressed behind him and ignoring the clomp of Zolf’s feet on the stairs as well.

“What is it, Zolf?” he asked, wearily, once they’d closed the hatch behind them, knowing that now there was little chance of even Grizzo… even the thing below hearing them.

Zolf looked hesitant, and Oscar raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to tap his foot, impatiently.

“I was wonderin’ if you wanted to try the other thing,” Zolf said. “You know. Embarrassin’ him.” Oscar sucked in air through his nose and let it out in a long exhale. 

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“Well I was hopin’ you’d be able to tell me, to be honest. You’re the one who knew him. I mean, I have ideas on what would work on… well I’ve thought about what Hamid ‘n Sasha might but Grizzop’s a paladin, right? Maybe somethin’ to do with Artemis?”

_Want a sausage, Wilde?_

_I never could turn it down._

Oscar shook his head. “I can’t think of anything that would get through to Grizzop. If it is him, he’s going to be angrier than anything. He d-didn’t… wouldn’t have time for being embarrassed. Not now.”

“Wilde…” Oscar turned before he could reasonably be expected to see the hand that Zolf was putting out - to touch him, to reassure him.

He wouldn’t stop _trying._

It was _infuriating._

“Let me know if there are any developments.”

_“Wilde…”_

He spun back. _“Leave it_ , Zolf,” he said, and hated that he could see hurt in Zolf’s eyes.

“Fine,” Zolf said, and turned to go back down to his duty.

Wilde drew in another breath and hated that it was uneven.

_Fine._

* * *

Sasha slept better than she had since… before Rome. Since before Damascus even. How long had it been, since she’d even had access to a proper bed?

Cairo. She’d last had a bed in Cairo, when she’d stabbed the squizzard at Hamid’s sister’s funeral and first run into Howard Bloody Carter.

It was only a week ago, really. Maybe two? Time really didn’t have any meaning any more, doubly so since Einstein had told them how much of it had passed while they were in that other place.

She felt safe here, with Cel and Jasper, and maybe that was a sign that she was going soft or maybe she was just that bone tired that it didn’t matter any more.

She was warm, and she was dry, and despite the worry lurking in the back of her mind about Hamid and Azu, about Grizzop and even about Wilde, she slept long and deep and woke up in the dawn to the soft pattering of raindrops on the roof of the shop. 

She slipped outside and took in the quiet, early morning routines of the villagers from under the awnings of Cel’s shop. She had a few curious looks, but mostly they seemed well enough disposed towards Cel not to worry about people they chose to shelter.

Given Cel’s controlled fury yesterday, Sasha figured the villagers were probably justified in their trust. 

Noise behind her made her startle and spin, hand flying to her dagger, but it was only Cel, who looked a little taken aback at her posture.

“Hey, buddy,” they said, and Sasha saw they were holding two steaming cups. “Thought you might like some tea to start the day.”

Sasha blinked, relaxed her hands and took a breath.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just. Habits.”

“Oh, I know how it is,” Cel said, offering one of the cups. “You get used to a certain way of living. But you’re safe here, you know that right?”

Sasha thought of all the other places she’d been safe in her life.

There hadn’t been many. 

She took the cup of tea and sipped at it. “Yeah, I… uh… I appreciate that. I really do.”

Cel beamed. “So I was thinking about how to help your friend, and well I figured we didn’t really have time to build the tank I was thinking about but I do have a lot of different bombs and bomb making material so…”

“I don’t want to hurt them,” Sasha said. “Uh. Well. Not yet anyway. Not until I’ve got some answers. If it is Wilde then he owes me an explanation for going all weird on us.”

Cel tilted their head. “He used to be your friend?” they said.

Sasha blinked. Thought of a mountain top in Damascus and a series of puns. The smell of cooking meat on flat, hot glass, and a fireworks display of denial.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah he did. And if that’s changed I wanna know why.”

“Okay, well I have a surprising number of non-lethal options, so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, so long as you don’t have a weak stomach because some of them…”

Cel turned and made their way back into their workshop, still chattering. Sasha took another sip of tea, letting its mild flavour and warmth spread over her tongue, then took a deep breath.

They were going to do this. They were going to save Grizzop and make Wilde answer for what he’d done.

It was going to be _fine._


	8. Fortify

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carter is good at his job. Sasha and Cel are a team. Wilde and Zolf have words.

Carter wasn’t a big fan of magical healing as a rule - especially not from Zolf, whose bedside manner left a lot to be desired, and he wasn’t ever going to ask Wilde for it again, considering the last time he’d asked Wilde for something he’d been told no so resoundly he still winced to remember it. 

When Sasha had dropped on him he’d landed heavily on one arm and he knew the elbow was likely bruised but he strapped it himself and didn’t go to Zolf and now he was standing in the rain straining his ears to listen for a rogue that Zolf had described as the best in the business and his elbow hurt and he was not happy.

He contemplating having a cigar, or a sip from the hipflask nestled in his breast pocket, but the last time he’d drunk on duty Zolf had  _ known  _ and that had lead to another dressing down from Wilde and honestly it had been more than a decade since he’d been at school and he was a grown man and didn’t  _ deserve  _ to be treated like a five year old.

“Any signs?” Barnes said, as he came around the side of the inn.

Barnes was nice to him. Usually. Or at least didn’t treat him like an errant child, or a pet, which as far as Carter was concerned, meant he was being nice.

“Nothing,” Carter said, and tried to keep the sullen out of his tone. None of this was Barnes’ fault, after all. “But from what Zolf says, that doesn’t mean a lot, with Sasha.”

“She’s a smart one,” Barnes said. “Smart and good at what she does.”

Carter turned his face away so that Barnes wouldn’t see the disappointed look on his face, but Barnes wasn’t finished. “Like you. Wilde is right to put you out here looking for her. I know it’s rough with the rain and all but we’ll…”

Howard didn’t have time to interpret the small surge of warmth in his gut at Barnes’ words, because he caught a glimpse of something in the bamboo off to the west of the inn.

He reached out and grabbed Barnes’ arm, indicating that he should be quiet and stay where he was.

He drew a dagger and circled around the faint reflection he could see even through the rain, certain to be as quiet as he was able (and he knew he was able to be very very quiet).

He was almost at a point where he could see the gap between the bamboo where the thing - whatever it was - had been when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned, and was face to face with a tall person, with even taller hair kept up and away from their face by a pair of goggles. They were grinning.

“Hi!” they said. “Sorry to be rude but my friend needed me to distract you for a moment while she…”

Carter opened his mouth to say something, shout for Barnes, but it was covered by a cloth, coated in something that smelt unfamiliar and strong and immediately made his head spin.

“Sorry mate,” he heard a familiar voice say. “I’ll buy you a gin when you wake up. If you turn out not to be a prat, anyway. Well. More of a prat.”

_ Good at what she does,  _ Carter thought as the edges of his vision turned black.  _ Like you. _

* * *

Oscar had a bone to pick with the concept of time. Since the onset of forced quarantine for all agents, it had flowed wrong. Stop starts from missions, gaps where he  _ had to believe Zolf was dead  _ units of time where nothing had meaning aside from the work, the insurmountable weight of a war they were  _ losing  _ and no one to share it with.

Time had very little meaning, these days, aside from a measure of how little of it they had left.

Still, Carter had not made his regular check in. And that meant there was a strong possibility that Sasha -  _ the thing that looked like Sasha  _ \- was back.

There were limited things he could do to protect the inn on his own. He wasn’t a skilled fighter (although he had reach, and height, and Barnes had said his left hook was worthy of a sailor - Oscar did not inform him he had learned it at Oxford, in self defense, one of the first things he learned, the second being how to mask his irish accent) and illusion magic was useful only as a distraction, except under very specific circumstances. He relied on Barnes and Carter and Zolf to be the muscle, and now it appeared, he had only Zolf left. 

He made his way to the cellar. Did not look at… the person in the cell, simply motioned for Zolf to join him.

“What is it?” Zolf asked, as soon as the hatch was closed and he was certain they could not be overheard.

“Carter’s missed his check in,” Oscar said. 

Zolf swore. He had a wide catalogue of swear words both in Dwarvish and English, and usually Oscar enjoyed hearing them. Tonight, though, he was too tense to appreciate the particular nuance of that Dwarvish description of a certain piece of anatomy and instead nodded. 

“She’ll be coming straight for Grizzop,” Zolf said. “I should stay here."

“Agreed,” Oscar said. “I’ll set up a perimeter alarm, give you as much warning as I can to stop her.”

“Wilde you…”

“I’ll be fine,” he lied, allowing himself to reach out and squeeze Zolf’s arm. 

“Here,” Zolf said. “Before you go at least let me…” He put his hand over Oscar’s where it rested on his arm, and Oscar felt the familiar warmth of his magic wash over him. 

Oscar tilted his head. “She can do more damage with one dagger than I can do with my glaive,” he said, and his voice was thick. “That should… stop her from killing you outright.”

Oscar swallowed. Resisted the urge to turn his hand in Zolf’s and squeeze it.

Not the time.

Time had no meaning anymore.

Until they won.

“If it is her she won’t try to kill me,” he said, and he saw Zolf raise an eyebrow. Inwardly, he cursed. He was slipping. Allowing himself to hope.

_ It isn’t her. _

“If it is her she’s gonna be fucking furious with you,” Zolf said. “Just like Grizzop was. And I wouldn’t blame her. And neither would you.”

“No,” Oscar said. Zolf dropped his hand. 

“Be safe,” he said.

“You too.”

* * *

It was easy enough to set up the alarm barrier across every entrance to the inn. Ryu was familiar enough with fortifications to usher the patrons out, grumbling at lack of profit even as Oscar gently reminded him that he didn’t have to worry about that any more. Once a business owner, always a business owner, it seemed, at least where Ryu was concerned.

Once the inn was cleared Oscar sang the spell for the alarm. Ryu retired to bed and Oscar sat alone, crosslegged on the floor above the trap door, feeling the edges of his magic, knowing that if anyone crossed the border he would be alerted with enough time to give Zolf the signal.

He didn’t have long to wait.

It was perhaps an hour later that the twang of alarm went off in his brain, signifying that someone had crossed the barrier. He lifted the cane he held in his hands, ready to thump in the rhythm on which he and Zolf had agreed.

He didn’t get the chance. A knife was pressed against his throat. A scarred, familiar hand reached across his body and plucked the cane from his hand, and Oscar had to acknowledge that in this particular fight, he had always,  _ always  _ been outmatched.

“It was a pretty song,” a voice that was so familiar it hurt, deep in his chest, said close to his ear. “But you should probbly have checked that I wasn’t already here before you sang it, Wilde.”


	9. Crowded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trust needs to be established. There isn't enough room. Sasha meets an old friend.

He looked different. The last time she’d seen him he’d been tired and denying it - none of them had realised the extent of what was wrong and Grizzop’s short explanation of it once they were in Rome was fuzzy in her memory - some sort of curse? Stopping him from sleeping. But even in Damascus, on the mountain, he’d looked more like… more like Oscar Wilde than he did now. He wasn’t wearing his fancy suit, for one and there was a jagged scar down one side of his face and his shoulders were slumped in what looked like defeat and his eyes were dull and tired.

They’d tied him up, him and Carter and Barnes - bloody Commander Barnes, of all the people to find in an inn in Japan she’d not expected to see  _ him,  _ not even to get started on Howard Carter. Carter and Barnes were still unconscious - Cel had said they weren’t entirely sure how long the knockout compound would last, although they  _ did  _ assure Sasha that it wouldn’t do any permanent damage.

“Keeping weird company, Wilde,” Sasha said, sitting across from him. Wilde wasn’t gagged, but Cel had their crossbow trained on him and Wilde hadn’t tried any magic. With his hands bound he couldn’t do too much - that much at least she knew from Hamid. 

“I could say the same for you, Sasha,” Wilde said, and his voice was flat.

“Cel’s good people,” Sasha said. “I helped them, they agreed to help me. They’re worried about you lot being just one village over and apparently trapping random people who used to be your  _ friend  _ for no reason.”

“It’s not for no reason, Sasha,” Wilde said, and Sasha’s eyelid twitched. She  _ knew  _ that tone of voice. It was the tone of voice Eldarion used to take with her, when she wanted her to do something, wanted her to pretend to be something she wasn’t, wanted her to fit in a box that was too small, too dark, too confining.

It was the tone she’d taken with her when she wanted her to be  _ less Sasha. _

“Don’t do that, Wilde,” Sasha said. 

“Do what?”

“Talk to me like I’m a little kid. I thought we were past that.”

She saw Wilde pause at that. Blink a few times. “I…” he blew air out his cheeks. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Where’s Grizzop?”

“I can show you.”

“Or you can tell me so I don’t have to untie you to go get him.”

Wilde licked his lips. “Look, I don’t want to patronise you, or treat you like you’re anything other than the extremely competent woman you are, but you don’t know the full story…”

“Einstein told us about the infection.”

“He told you that we need to make sure it doesn’t spread.”

“So what, you think me and Grizzop are infected? Wilde we’ve been in  _ Rome.  _ We’ve been rescuing our  _ friends.” _

“I have no way to verify that,” Wilde said. “I’m sorry, I really am but we need to… we  _ all  _ need to be isolated now. For a full seven days. We don’t know how this thing is transmitted, we don’t know whether it’s by touch or magic or something else. Einstein will have had to go back to Curie and isolate himself after transporting you - which he shouldn’t have done by the way, what did Grizzop do to convince him…” Wilde trailed off as Sasha simply raised an eyebrow. “Right. Right I should have anticipated that I suppose.” He sucked in air through his nose.

“I thought we were friends, Wilde.”

His face spasmed at that. It was so fast she almost didn’t see it, and in a moment, his expression went back to neutral. 

“I can’t be sure that any of you are who you say you are.”

That…  _ hurt.  _ Sasha didn’t know how to be anyone  _ other  _ than herself.

“And I guess that means I can’t be sure you’re who you say you are, either,” she said, and Wilde sighed. “Where’s Grizzop?” she asked again. 

Wilde looked at her. Long and hard. In the corner of the room Carter started to stir and Sasha glanced up at Cel, who had been uncharacteristically quiet through all of this. Wilde followed her gaze as Cel moved to stand over them. 

“All good here, buddy,” Cel said, although their face was troubled. Sasha felt a warmth from them. Something that reminded her of people she missed.

People she’d lost.

“Look, at this point all of us are potentially infected,” Wilde said. “Except for…” 

He trailed off. Bit his lip.

Sasha twirled the dagger in her hand. “Look, Wilde, I don’t want to hurt you but I’m not leaving here without Grizzop and I might not want to leave here without a reason for you being all weird but I  _ will.  _ Cos you owe us more than this.”

“Sasha…” he hissed and he shook his head at the look on her face, stammering. “I’m sorry I’m  _ not  _ trying to be patronising it’s just that… there’s a chance we can fix this and we can all be okay and everything will be sorted but the only way that can happen is if you  _ trust  _ me.”

Sasha resisted the urge to pull at her hair. “You can’t… you  _ don’t…” _

“You should just show her, Wilde,” a voice from the corner of the room piped up. Sasha looked over to see Barnes, awake, groggy, looking at her. “She’s not stupid. She knows the risks. And as far as everyone is concerned, we’re all infected anyway.”

“You believe this whole story, Barnes?” Sasha threw at him. “You think I’m not… who I am? Can’t you all just tell?”

“We can,” Wilde said. “We can tell! It just… takes seven days.”

“You know there are diseases that take that long to manifest in a body,” Cel piped up. “It’s actually very interesting if you can get the tissues to study it - because disease, you see… it’s kind of like a tiny animal that lives in your bits, your little, tiny bits… I can't remember the word in English... oh that's right it's cells - not keen on that for obvious reasons and any way they want to survive so they _replicate_ and…” 

“It’s all right, Cel,” Sasha said. “We can work out the weird bits of this, when Wilde takes me to Grizzop.”

Wilde sighed. “Okay. All right. But please, Sasha, when we go there, please just… don’t touch anyone. Don’t go near anyone.”

“We’re  _ not…” _

“No matter how much you might want to.”

#

Zolf wasn’t a fidgeter by nature, but Grizzop was, and over the past day and a half Zolf had come to dread not the moments when Grizzop was anxiously bouncing his leg as he read, or the times he was up and doing push ups or flexing his bow, or the times he would tap out tuneless rhythms on the bars with one claw unconsciously. He had come to dread the moments when Grizzop went silent.

After Wilde had given him the run down of what to expect and they’d agreed on the right signal, Zolf had returned to his chair and picked up a book, but he was too tense to read and so had instead sat staring at the page for an indeterminate amount of time, ears straining to catch the slightest hint of movement or conflict upstairs, even though he  _ knew  _ the cell was all but soundproof.

It didn’t take him long to notice that there was no sound coming from the cell, and he looked up from the page he hadn’t turned to see Grizzop’s red eyes fixed on him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothin’,” Zolf said. 

“You’ve been looking at that page for half an hour and you haven’t turned it once. Either you’re just reciting the whole damned book in your head or something’s going on.”

Zolf sighed, and closed the book, but didn’t answer. Simply looked up the stairs to the hatch, and listened.

“She’s back, ain’t she?”

“Grizzop…” he looked back to see the goblin grinning, bouncing a little now on the cot. 

“She’s back and she’s going to bust me out.”

“You  _ know  _ why you’re in the cage, you know why we have to do this. The world is in danger and…”

There was a knocking at the hatch. Zolf grabbed his glaive, but the pattern wasn’t the pattern for danger, and it wasn’t coming from the trapdoor that Grizzop had initially fallen through. 

That  _ should  _ mean that things were okay. That Wilde was safe.

It didn’t necessarily mean that Sasha was. 

The hatch opened, and Wilde walked in. His hands were bound, but he wasn’t gagged. Zolf ignited his glaive. 

There were people behind him. A tall person, with even taller hair, and another figure - someone so familiar that Zolf didn’t even try to stop himself from drawing in a gasp. 

“Sasha?” he said.

_ “Zolf?” _

“Zolf keep back,” Wilde said. “We all have to go into quarantine, you can’t risk infection.”

“Sasha!” Grizzop was up, and against the bars and Zolf didn’t have time to process that it was her because she rushed to the cage and started work on the lock and Zolf knew  _ that  _ couldn’t happen so he brought the glaive down in front of her, blade hovering near her face.

She stilled her movements, turned her head to look in his direction. He kept the blade steady, despite the sudden urge to drop it. 

“Aight, Zolf,” she said, low and soft. And  _ angry. _ “You going to kill me?”

_ Gods  _ that hurt.

“No,” he said. “But you can’t let him out.”

“Can. And will.”

“No, Sasha,” Grizzop said, and the glaive in Zolf's hand _did_ waver at that.

“Grizzop… wot?”

Zolf turned his head to look at Grizzop, and a weight lifted from his chest that he hadn’t realised was there. 

Grizzop looked back at him and gave him a half hearted grin. “Look, I don’t  _ like  _ it. But you’re not evil.”

“You don’t know that,” Zolf said. “Your magic doesn’t work in here.”

Grizzop rolled his eyes. “There are other ways of working out if someone’s evil, you know.”

Zolf snorted, then looked back at Sasha, whose lockpicks were still out. 

“Excuse me!” the tall person behind Wilde said. “But maybe you’d be so good enough to give me a thorough explanation of what’s going on? Because at the moment it looks a lot like I should be throwing a bomb and then sorting it all afterwards.”

“Please, don’t do that,” Zolf said, just as Wilde spun and said “Gods don’t…”

Zolf stopped. Wilde took a deep breath and sighed it out. “We’d be happy to explain at length, but first we need to work out some arrangement to keep us all quarantined. At this point Zolf’s the only one we all know is clean so  _ he  _ needs to be on the other side of that door. Without touching any of  _ us.  _ Can we make that happen? Possibly?”

Zolf let the glaive drop, and shook his head. “All of you move over there,” he indicated the other side of the guardroom, as far away from the door as they could get. 

“Zolf there’s not enough…”

“Shut up, Wilde,” he said, then murmured under his breath and stepped through the stone wall past the group and up into the stairwell. When he turned back he saw the entire group was looking at them, mouths open in shock.

“What?” he asked. 

“That one’s new,” Wilde said, mildly.

“I’ve had a bit of free time lately,” Zolf said, feeling his cheeks colour. “You’re not all going to fit in the cell, but only Wilde and Grizzop can do magic…”

“Oh I can do magic,” Cel said, putting up their hand.

“We need to get Carter and Barnes down here as well,” Wilde said, and Zolf groaned. “Well there’s no  _ way  _ this is going to work, Wilde. We can’t… there has to be a better way to do this.”

Wilde looked angry, then turned to Sasha. “Are we at least agreed that we’re not going to kill each other now?” he said.

Sasha raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, not right now,” she said.

Zolf nearly laughed. Nearly reached out. 

It  _ was  _ her. The certainty settled in his gut in a way that would cut like the most serrated ugly blade if he was wrong.

“So do you think…?” Wilde said, turning and gesturing with his bound hands.

Sasha heaved a breath. “Fine.  _ Fine.” _

She freed Wilde’s hands, and for a mad moment, Zolf thought he’d bring down magic on them - raise them high and burst into song, bring the full brunt of the power Zolf knew he possessed onto all of them.

But he didn’t. He just rubbed his wrists and cast his gaze back up to Zolf. 

Zolf sucked his lips. “I can sort this out,” he said. “Just. All of you come upstairs and wait in the taproom. I’m going to trust you to look out for each other for a little while while I fix stuff, okay?”

“Zolf…” Wilde started.

“Look, if we go by your books you’re already infected which means I’m in charge, right? So shut up, Wilde.”

Wilde blinked, and his mouth twitched. Zolf raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to say something, contradict him, but instead he inclined his head. 

“Is anyone going to let me out?" Grizzop said.


	10. Social Distancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grizzop misses his clutch. Oscar has some jewellery. Sasha blames herself.

Grizzop had spent the first three years of his life in what amounted to a hug pile of his clutch sisters and brothers. Life in the sewers under Amsterdam had been hard, but warmth and touch and companionship had been what had kept them going. 

Then all of that had been washed away, and he’d been left at the temple of Artemis, surrounded by paladins and clerics who were warm and affectionate in their own ways, but definitely not used to the level of physical contact Grizzop had enjoyed up till then.

He’d spent that first night, after the flood, curled up next to Eva in her cot, sobbing, and Eva had been willing enough to share her heat and comfort the tiny orphan goblin, but after that she’d acted surprised whenever Grizzop had wanted to be held, to be touched, and Grizzop had learned not to ask for something that made her uncomfortable.

Sometimes he couldn’t help it. Sometimes, when training had been difficult, when the other acolytes had mocked him he’d run to Eva and clung to her until she’d reluctantly gathered him up into a hug.

It hadn’t been the same. It couldn’t ever be. But he’d learned not to ask for it too often.

When they were back in the taproom and Zolf had made it clear to the innkeeper that they weren’t to be allowed out Grizzop bumped up close to Sasha who looked down at him and grinned and he didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, wrapped his arms around her waist and squeezed, quick and hard, breathing in her scent, happy that she was back, that one, at least, of his chosen pack was safe.

“Aight Grizzop,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice. “Didn’t think I’d leave you here did you?”

“‘Course not,” he said, pulling back and grinning up at her. She was looking down at him, eyes crinkled at the edges, mouth curling. 

She patted his head, a little awkwardly, and he loosened his grip. 

She was pack, yes, but she wasn’t clutch, and he didn’t want to push it.

When he broke away he looked over to see Wilde, arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the bar, watching them both. His face was expressionless and impossible to read and different - with that scar down his face and the simple cut of his clothes and even the set of his shoulders.

It wasn’t the Wilde Grizzop had punched, back in Cairo.

But it wasn’t the Wilde he’d left in Damascus either.

Wilde saw him looking at him and raised an eyebrow before glancing away. Grizzop felt a surge of anger at that, but didn’t think it was the time to confront him about it. Not yet at least.

They were going to have seven days of each other’s company.

“You talked to him?” Sasha asked. Grizzop shook his head. 

“He wouldn’t come near me,” he said. “Zolf said it was ‘cos he thinks everyone’s infected until they’re not.”

“Yeah he said that to me. More or less.”

“Nah, I mean, Zolf’s okay with it? He talks to you and stuff. But Wilde acts like you’re dead already.”

Sasha was looking at him again. “You been down there with Zolf, this whole time?” she asked.

Grizzop nodded. 

Sasha shifted from foot to foot, a line appearing between her eyes. “He okay?” she asked finally.

“Wot’ya mean?”

“I mean. Uh. Well. Does he seem… okay, you know? Happy? Well, not happy, that’d be… I dunno Grizzop, did he seem…  _ okay?” _

Grizzop figured he knew what she was asking. “He’s… grumpy I guess. Tired. Sad. But considering what Einstein told us that’s kind of… well everyone’s gonna be a bit like that now ain’t they?”

She let out a breath, lips twitching. “Nah well. He was always like that. Really.”

Grizzop had kind of figured. “He gave me books to read. They were okay, I guess.”

She grinned at that. “You read them?” she said.

“Well. Yeah. Nothing else to do except wait for you to come bust me out.”

“You knew I would, right?”

He bumped her hip with his fist, lightly. “‘Course, I already said.” 

“‘M not losing anyone else,” she muttered, and Grizzop resisted the urge to hug her again.

It was hard.

“So you didn’t talk to Wilde. At all?”

“Nah. He didn’t stay long. And he was…” he waved a hand at Wilde, still looking their way, blank faced. “Like that. The whole time.” 

Wilde sighed and pushed off from the bar, approaching them.

“I can hear you perfectly well, you know,” he said. 

“Rude to eavesdrop, Wilde,” Sasha said.

“As if that would ever stop you,” he replied, and there was a touch of the old Wilde in that.

“Too right,” she said. “Grizzop said you were a right prat the whole time he was downstairs.”

“I would apologise,” Wilde said, and he looked down at Grizzop. “But I know he understands my reasons.”   


“Oh sure, I understand them. They’re stupid though.”

Wilde blinked down at him. “You haven’t seen what this disease does, Grizzop,” he said. 

Grizzop didn’t drop his gaze, just looked up at Wilde, at his scar, at his clothes. He sucked in a breath. “Yeah I think I have, actually,” he said, and tugged at Sasha’s elbow. “Let’s get a drink, Sasha. Leave  _ this one _ to his brooding or whatever.”

When he glanced back at Wilde, as they sat at the bar and Sasha rummaged behind it looking for bottles, Wilde was still looking at him, one hand tracing the shape of his scar.

The noises started a little after that. Odd noises, of stone against stone, scraping and raw, accompanied by a deep rumbling. “What is he  _ doing  _ down there?” Wilde muttered. 

“Making the room bigger,” Carter said.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Howard,” Barnes said. “You can’t just… make rooms bigger. At least one person can’t. Not without some…”

“Really high level clerical magic,” Howard interrupted, glaring at Barnes. “Which. You know. Zolf. Really good at that sort of thing? It’s kind of his whole schtick.”

Barnes raised his eyebrows. “Good point.”

A few minutes later, Zolf appeared in the doorway of the taproom. 

“What did you do?” Wilde asked him, and Grizzop didn’t fail to catch the edge of concern in his voice.

“Made the room bigger,” Zolf said, shrugging. “Come on then, sooner you all get down there sooner you can come out again.”

#

Zolf had done a good job. While there was nothing he could do about the anti magic cell, the surrounding room was twice as large as it had been, expanded out into the bedrock of the island on all sides. He’d stacked blankets and bedrolls in one corner and set up a table and chairs, a stack of books in the other with cushions and games and other things that Oscar knew were around the inn to keep them amused. 

“I’m sorry, Cel, wasn’t it? And Grizzop. You’ll have to go in the cell. It’s… for the best.”

“What about Wilde?” Sasha asked. Zolf looked at him and Oscar swallowed, then fished in his shirt, bringing out the key on a chain he had worn since Damascus. 

He held it out to Zolf, who took it gently, carefully, without touching his fingers. 

“What’s that?” Sasha said.

“You still wearing the cuffs, Wilde?” Grizzop said. “After all this time?”

Oscar looked down at Grizzop, who was frowning, and lifted the leg of his trousers slightly, revealing the glint of metal locked around his ankle.

“We never found out who was cursing me,” he said. “And it’s vital that I not be tracked by magical means. So yes, I’m still wearing the cuffs, Grizzop.”

“So  _ that’s  _ why you ain’t prestidigitated,” Sasha said. “Why you’re all…” she waved her hand up and down, indicating all of Oscar, and he nodded. 

“Are those anti magic cuffs?” Cel said. “That’s… they’re very hard to come by. And an entire anti magic cell as well?”

“Which you and him are gonna have to get in,” Zolf said, indicating Grizzop. Oscar noticed that he carefully wasn’t looking at Wilde’s ankle, or at Wilde at all. 

Cel looked uncertain, and Oscar resisted the urge to reassure them. “That will leave my village unprotected,” they said. “Shoin’s men are…”

“I’m sorry,” Oscar said. “But this isn’t a negotiation any longer. We must maintain the quarantine, or Shoin’s men will be the least of your worries. And if it’s any consolation, our first order of business once our seven days are up is to deal with Shoin, in a permanent manner. Your village will be safe.”

“Seven days is a long time to hold on if someone’s in trouble,” Cel said.

“I’ll do my best to check on them,” Zolf said and Oscar noted Cel’s palpable relief at that. He didn’t think it would be the right time to tell them that with the entire rest of their team quarantined, the only way he could possibly follow through on that was to go himself and leave them all under the care of Ryu. 

He didn’t begrudge Zolf the white lie. But he also suspected Cel was willing enough to accept it for what it was - an offer of understanding, and an apology.

“This is my fault,” Sasha said morosely.

“No, no it isn’t, buddy,” Cel said, patting her shoulder absently. “It’s Shoin’s fault really. His fault and whatever those blue vein things are.”

“Cel’s right,” Oscar said. “Shoin is to blame for this. And perhaps, myself and our team, for underestimating you when Einstein first brought you here.”

“What, you reckon all of this would be okay if you’d managed to catch me?”

“Might be fewer of us stuck in quarantine,” Carter muttered, and Barnes cuffed him over the back of the head. 

“Well. I’ve seen what disease can do to a town. So I’m willing to take this one on trust, at least for a while. Maybe while we’re down here you can tell me all you know about it? I’ve got some experience with… well with a lot of things to be frank and it does sound absolutely fascinating…” 

Oscar let Cel’s chatter wash over him - strangely soothing although he could catch probably one word in ten, glancing over to Zolf as they talked. His eyes were fixed back on Oscar’s face, and he didn’t look away when Oscar met them. It wouldn’t be the first time Zolf had been his guard during quarantine, but it was the first time since… 

“You right?” Zolf asked him, voice soft, and gentle. 

Oscar blinked. Let out a breath. “No,” he said. “But I will be.”

“You’d better.”

He looked up to see Grizzop watching both of them. When he saw Oscar he flicked one ear, the ring in it catching the dim light from the stairwell. 

“Right then,” Zolf said. “Into the cell with you two. I’ll get some food organised. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can.”

“Thank you, Zolf,” Oscar said. “Under the circumstances I believe we can forego physical inspections until the final day. Some self monitoring will have to do. I don’t want you putting yourself at any more risk, especially with so many of us down here.”

“Fine.”

Zolf turned, then turned back. “Oh, Barnes. Could you do the honours?”

Barnes gave a soft, bitter chuckle and reached out to snag Carter by the arm. 

“Really?” Carter said. “You still don’t trust me?”

“Sasha might be able to help with that,” Zolf said. 

“With what?”

“Patting him down for lockpicks,” Oscar said. “He keeps at least six on his person at all times. Sometimes quite well hidden.”

Sasha chuckled, and Cel and Grizzop moved into the anti magic field, and Oscar watched as Zolf’s metal feet disappeared up the stairs.

It was going to be a long week.


	11. Seven Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine week fun and games for our heroes.

**Day 1: Sasha**

They weren’t allowed outside, which irritated her more than she thought it would. After all it was just wet out there - the rain didn’t seem to show any sign of stopping and it wasn’t as though  _ liked  _ it. But there wasn’t enough room in the basement to properly practice with her knives. She did some tricks and Grizzop suggested she throw them at some pillows instead of at trees or a target like she normally would but Wilde put his foot down. 

“We bought the inn,” he said. “But it still needs to function as one for our cover to work. If you start destroying the furnishings Ryu will be very upset with us.”

Grizzop poked his tongue out at Wilde’s back after that little outburst and Sasha had a little laugh. He and Cel and Carter were sharing the anti magic area of the basement, and they seemed to have worked it out quite well, although Grizzop glared at Carter ninety percent of the time. It was lucky Carter wasn’t that big a bloke, for all his height, and Cel was gangly and thin enough for them to be fairly comfortable.

Sasha couldn't help but think of Azu, having to go through quarantine when they finally caught up from Rome, and hoped her friend would be as lucky in her cell mates.

Although if she only had to share the space with Hamid, Sasha supposed Azu would be just fine. 

They were brought food - more rice balls and noodles and things that Sasha hadn’t seen before with spices and flavours that were mild but delicious. “Oi someone didn’t cook this fish,” she pointed out, and Wilde smiled at her and explained what Sushi was and Cel gave her a run down of the best fish for it. 

“The fishing trawlers don’t get out very often these days,” Cel said. “Storm’s too big. But you can do some net fishing on the shore if you’re careful.”

The raw fish was delicious, and Sasha wondered why people bothered cooking it if it could taste this good without anything done to it.

“It really does depend on the fish,” Wilde said. “And the hand of the chef who cuts it.”

“Was it the innkeeper guy, wot made this then?” Sasha asked.

“Zolf’s been trying his hand,” Wilde said, and he smiled at that. 

Sasha exchanged a glance with Grizzop, who was glaring at Wilde from across the room.

“We’ll need to set a watch,” Barnes said, and Sasha raised an eyebrow. 

“For what? We’re locked up!”

Wilde chuckled. “For him,” he jerked a thumb at Carter, whose arms were crossed over his chest, a pout plastered on his face.

**Day 2: Carter**

Zolf had, of course, found all his stashes of booze when he’d adjusted the size of the room, which explained the  _ look  _ he’d given him as he locked the door behind them on that first day. And he’d intended to sneak out and get it back, not break quarantine the way Barnes and Wilde obviously thought he was going to. It wasn’t fair. He was entirely too sober and he was a little bit terrified that Grizzop wanted to murder him.

He hadn’t forgotten the goblin’s threat to leave him in the spike pit in Cairo.

On the morning of the second day, though, Grizzop confronted him. “Look, I don’t trust you, but it looks like pretty much no one here does, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But I’m not gonna  _ kill  _ you. Artemis doesn’t work like that.”

“No, she’s more about the hunt, isn’t she,” Carter said, morosely.

Grizzop grinned. “Exactly. So you only have to worry about me if you run!”

“That’s not very comforting, Grizzop,” Carter said.

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

**Day 3: Cel**

They constructed a hammock to hang on the bars either side of the cell so that Grizzop and Carter could have a bit more floor space to sleep. They tried to distract themself from the constant worry about Jasper and the village, but it was difficult not to resent the tall, handsome man who mostly sat in the corner of the room, arms loosely resting on his bent knees, periodically glancing up the stairwell to where the other residents of the inn were.

“Why _are_ you wearing anti magic cuffs?” Cell asked him quietly, on the evening of the third night. They had poked their head over the hammock to see Wilde absently fingering the cuff on one ankle.

“I told you. Before Grizzop joined Sasha and the others went to Rome, I was being magically cursed…”

“Yes, I got that, I mean why were they cursing  _ you.  _ In particular. Is it because you work for the meritocrats?”

Wilde sucked in air through his nose. “I don’t. Not any more.”

“But you did then?”

Wilde’s mouth tightened. “Nominally. I was an independent agent. Give a lot of freedom to pursue my own avenues of enquiry.”

“But you were doing it in the name of the meritocrats.”

Wilde waved a hand. “I don’t think the curses were to do with my connection to the meritocrats. I think they were due to my connections with the LOLOMG. They were getting too close to the truth and had to be deflected. Me being incapacitated would have hampered them substantially. Did, in fact, hamper them substantially. Had I been at my best before Rome it’s possible I could have prevented the kidnapping of their loved ones.”

“How?”

“I’m an illusionist, and a specialist in divination. And, if I do say so myself, an exceptionally good one, when I’m not under a curse. My judgement and talents were severely impaired by the time the others went to Rome. If Grizzop hadn’t… I would have failed them far more comprehensively than I did.”

Cel considered that for a while. They weren’t unfamiliar with diviniation magic and could see how it would be useful to a spy. Then their brain backed up a little.

“Sorry, did you say… the _ LOLOMG?” _

**Day 4: Zolf**

He hated this. Hated it with every fibre of his being. Despite the fact that the basement was heavily soundproofed he felt like he could hear them moving underneath him and it set him to shivering when the heat and humidity of the island hadn’t changed for weeks.

They weren’t infected. He had to believe that. He wasn’t like Wilde, he refused to write them all off out of some weird concept that grief is better confronted head on  _ before it was even certain.  _ They weren’t infected, but the little, niggling doubts crept in and made it impossible for him to sleep at night, drove him to pacing around the inn during the day, circling it, trying desperately not to think about the people he cared most about in the world being locked beneath him under threat of death.

_ Death that Zolf would have to deal. _

He cooked for them. He shuffled the papers on Wilde’s desk and thought of him, sitting there, head bowed over them, waiting for Zolf to tell him to go to bed or to eat or to do any of the basic things he needed to do in order to survive. Of course, Wilde would do them if Zolf wasn’t here, but it had become a ritual, over the months. Wilde knew well enough that Zolf needed to have responsibilities, had to believe he was doing good, had to have something other than his own thoughts to focus on in order for him not to sink into depression, and Wilde had happily slipped into that role and now that he was gone (not gone, not infected,  _ absolutely fine)  _ Zolf felt like he was adrift.

He slept with his glaive next to him. 

**Day 5: Grizzop**

He woke, as he usually did, before Cel and Carter - Cel tended to sleep erratically, sometimes getting up in the middle of the night to scribble on notepaper they’d been given, sometimes simply sagging in the middle of the day into their hammock as though all energy had left them in a rush. Grizzop thought perhaps that their brain didn’t know how to regulate itself, that once they got a thought in their head they had to follow it through like a hunt, and it was only because Zolf brought meals to them at regular times that they remembered to come out of it every now and then.

He could relate. This morning Carter was snoring softly in his cot (Carter often didn’t get up from it until after breakfast) and Sasha, who had woken before him as she usually did, and was sitting in a corner with one of Zolf’s romance novels open on her lap. Her face kept going through different emotions, so openly that Grizzop could almost predict which plot points she’d reached. It was actually kind of fun to watch, and Grizzop kept an eye on her for a good ten minutes, trying to work out if she was actually enjoying the book, or if she was as baffled by it as she seemed.

“I don’t know why Zolf likes these so much,” she muttered, turning a page.

She did not, however, put the book down, and Grizzop grinned to himself before turning his attention to Wilde.

Wilde had also been awake when Grizzop woke. He was sleeping very little, actually, although he made the motions, lying down on his bedroll every evening after the lights were turned out. Grizzop could see him perfectly well - an advantage he had over everyone else in the room - and what's more he knew what he looked like when he was actually asleep. Remembered him, out like a light in Damascus, every limb relaxed. No. These past nights whenever Grizzop had happened to look in Wilde’s direction he’d been lying with his back to the anti magic cell, tense across the shoulders. 

“You’re still not sleeping,” Grizzop said bluntly, when Wilde looked up and caught him staring. A notebook lay open on  _ his  _ lap, but he had not written in it this morning, despite holding a pen lightly in one hand. 

“It’s not as though I’m doing anything useful down here,” Wilde said. 

“You know, I thought you’d changed,” Grizzop said. “But you’re still as annoying as ever.”

Wilde smiled, and it was warm and open and fond, and Grizzop didn’t know how to deal with it. “That’s good to know.”

**Day Six: Barnes**.

It was about discipline, the waiting. He was used to it. Trained for it. It wasn’t the first time he’d been quarantined, not even the first time he’d been quarantined at the inn. Usually, though, he only had Carter for company, and Carter’s inevitable booze, and Carter’s long stream of complaints and frequent escape attempts.

He realised, around the fourth day, that he missed those quarantines. They’d felt almost like a holiday, a break from the crushing weight of expectation that waited for them on day seven, when they would go out again and try to make sense of a ruined world.

“I could just go up and get us some booze,” Carter said to him. “It’s only one more day, Barnes my lad. We could have a pre-freedom party down here. Get Wilde to loosen up a bit. I bet Grizzop is a laugh when he’s drunk.”

Barnes, who was sitting with his back to the bars closest to Carter’s cot, chuckled. 

“One of these days you’re going to push it too far and someone’s going to kill you, Carter.”

He could feel Carter shrug, his back close enough to Barnes’ to be giving him some heat. “Probably,” he said. “But they’ll have to get close enough to me to do it first, and I’m always armed.”

“Not at the moment you’re not.”

Carter shifted away from the bars and Barnes turned around to see his expression. 

“Really?” Barnes said, and Howard grinned. 

One more day.

**Day 7. Oscar.**

On the final night, Oscar slept. He was exhausted and the thought of Zolf’s expression if they were cleared was enough to bully him into lying down and making more of an attempt, clearing his mind with exercises that had been taught to him years ago, during his meritocratic training.

He dreamed of London. Of a packed playhouse on opening night. Of standing in the glaring light, unable to see past the edge of the stage for the brightness, but feeling the intensity of thousands of pairs of eyes belonging to who knew what fixed upon him, stripping him bare.

He woke with a gasp, to the steady, red gaze of Grizzop from behind his bars. Oscar wondered at himself, that he could find that calm, measured regard so reassuring.

“At this point the number of times I’ve woken to your face is beginning to be statistically significant, even for me, Grizzop,” he said. 

“Shut up Wilde,” Grizzop said, but there was a smile hovering behind his lips. 


	12. What's Next

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks. So I was struck with carpal like you wouldn't BELIEVE - the dreaded nintendo switch was to blame at first and then just my own insistence on not stopping writing. After a couple of weeks of extremely light duties (no typing aside from essential work and lots of stretches) my hands are finally behaving themselves again so I should be back to regular updates.

Zolf called them up one at a time for final inspections, which was both a relief and a torment. There was no way of knowing, after all, if when Wilde didn’t come back down Zolf hadn’t actually found veins and killed him. He called Sasha up second, and Grizzop wondered if he knew what particular torture this was for him, to have to watch the people he cared about leave and  _ wait. _

He was surprised when Zolf called for him third, though. He would have thought he’d do Barnes and Carter before him, after all, they were the people he’d worked most closely with. Maybe Sasha had convinced him Grizzop needed to be next. 

Maybe Wilde had…

Wilde and Sasha were both waiting for him in the reading room and he let out a quick prayer of thankfulness to Artemis when he saw them. Sasha grinned and gave him a double thumbs up, although Wilde’s face was back to being guarded and cold. So it was fine, apparently, to talk and act like everything was all right when they were all stuck in quarantine, but as soon as the line had been drawn between infected and not…

Grizzop sighed internally. Wilde was a pain in the ass and a deeply irritating person, but this attitude of his wasn’t going to help him or the rest of them.

“I’m sorry, they have to be in here as well,” Zolf said. 

Grizzop allowed himself a smug smile. “You’d need all three of you to take me down,” he agreed, and Sasha gave a snort and Wilde… well.

Grizzop caught a flash of something in his eyes.

And maybe that was enough.

He stripped down and Zolf pronounced him clean and then they called up Barnes and Carter and Cel and they were fine as well and Grizzop was USED to this, really he was accustomed to having to deal with the pace of human idiocy but when Barnes and Carter left and when Sasha squeezed his shoulder and when Wilde finally looked up and saw that there was more to be discussed…

“Can we get on with things now, please?” he said. “What’s happening, how is it happening, why is it happening and is there someone whose knees I can shoot off?”

Wilde looked at him, and smiled, and there was an echo of the man he’d known and hated there now. “Oh, I think you’ll be able to shoot a lot of things, very soon Grizzop.”

#

“We’re going to take down Shoin, right?” Cel said, looking at Sasha, who shifted from one foot to the other a little sheepishly.

“I might have promised,” Sasha said. “So I dunno what you lot were planning but I’m going with them.”

Cel smiled down at Sasah from their not inconsiderable height and Zolf couldn’t resist quirking an eyebrow. There was just something about Sasha. She brought out the best in people.

Wilde held up a hand. “I assure you, that is absolutely the plan,” he said. “Funnily enough, Cel, we were looking into contacting you for help on this. Our Sasha, it seems, is better at being direct.”

“Well if you’d just been more reasonable when we’d first turned up…” 

Grizzop began, then stopped when Wilde gave him a look. There was something  _ there  _ that Zolf wasn’t sure what to feel about, didn’t want to analyse too deeply for fear of seeing something in him he also didn’t want to think about, not now, probably not ever.

“We have been for quite some time chronically short on manpower.”

Sasha snorted, and both Wilde and Zolf looked at her. “What?” she said. “Oh come on that was a good one.”

Wilde blinked. Then Zolf saw his mouth twitch in a suppressed smile. 

“In any case,” Wilde said, “we haven’t been able to make a move on Shoin with the limited resources we’ve had at hand. Carter and Barnes are skillful enough in their own way but without the sheer firepower of someone… someone…”

“Someone like Hamid,” Zolf said, bluntly. 

“Exactly,” Wilde said. “For obvious reasons sorcerers are hard to come by. So looking to the more… practical and chemical side of things had become our focus.”

“Well, buddy, you came to the right place. Even if you came in a round about way. I can  _ definitely  _ do explosions.” 

Wilde turned his smile on Cel and Zolf could see the effect it had on them, the brightening and the widening of the eyes, the parting of the lips.

He was an ass. But he could  _ talk.  _ He could wind his words around you and make you think you could save the world, and then he could focus his gaze on you and you could think that maybe the world was even worth saving. 

He’d done that to Zolf, too. Although it’d taken Zolf months to realise that the hope he’d thought he’d gotten from Wilde had been his all along, and that he’d have to force feed it back to the man on the regular or he’d collapse as sure as Zolf had, back in Prague.

“Good. Great. Perfect. So when do we leave?” Grizzop asked.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Hamid and Azu?” Sasha said. “I mean no offense to Cel but surely more explosives would be better than…”

“Carter and Barnes and I will hold the fort here,” Wilde said. “If Hamid and Azu turn up - well. They’ll have to go into quarantine just the same as you did. And I suspect that Hamid at least will react better to being told with authority that he needs to follow rules.”

“Oi,” Grizzop said. “Your rules were a waste of time.”

“For you, maybe,” Wilde said. “But there’s no guarantee when Hamid and Azu come through they won’t have been influenced or infected. Hamid can be very persuasive but I very much doubt Einstein will be allowed as much free reign teleporting after his… failure with you two.”

“I would have shot his knees off, Wilde,” Grizzop said.

“Yes and then you would have healed them,” Sasha said, and she was smiling. “Cos you’re a soft touch, Grizzop.”

Grizzop bumped his hip against Sasha’s, ears twitching. “Still would have teleported us here though. I’m not working for  _ that  _ bunch. I’m here for you and for Wilde and for the world.”

“And we’re grateful,” Wilde said, glancing at Zolf. Zolf shifted his feet, let out a breath, and nodded. 

“We’ll give you a day or so. Cel I suspect you want to check on your village, Carter and Barnes can go back with you, so we don’t have to go through quarantine again.”

Cel looked at Carter and Barnes, then at Sasha. “If you don’t mind,” Wilde said. “Sasha and Grizzop probably have some business here, with us.”

Zolf cocked an eyebrow, and glanced at Grizzop, whose face was also showing curiosity. Sasha, though, crossed her arms over her chest, and nodded as though she knew exactly what was going on.

_ Oh, _ Zolf thought.  _ Right. _

_ That. _

It was time, he supposed, to have a talk.


	13. Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oscar gives the group the run down.

“What happened to your face?” Sasha asked. Oscar blinked, taken aback at her bluntness. He might have expected that question from Grizzop straight away, but Grizzop was sitting with an arrow in his lap, absently stroking the fletching, his red eyes flickering around the room as though he expected them to be attacked at any moment. 

“We were betrayed,” he said. “I… I was betrayed. By a contact I thought we could trust.”

“Curie should have vetted him better,” Zolf muttered, and Oscar shook his head. 

“No it was my fault, Zolf, and you know it was. I trusted him because of our past history and I paid the price for it.”

“That’s why you’re so keen on the quarantine thing,” Sasha said. “Even though there was no way we could have been infected…” 

“I was forced to kill him,” he said, and he was proud of the fact that his voice came out smooth. “But as you can see, I did not emerge unscathed and my… close contact with him necessitated a week’s worth of quarantine. Valuable time. Wasted.”  _ Because I was foolish and sentimental. _

Grizzop had focused his gaze back on Oscar’s face as he spoke, and Oscar resisted the urge to duck his head away from his scrutiny. He clasped his hands together, in front of him, to hide their shaking.

“How’d you two end up working together again?” Sasha asked, nodding towards Zolf. “Zolf you said you were going to find out about the Harlequins…”

Zolf glanced at Oscar. “I did. Eventually. After I left in Prague…” he took a breath and looked at Sasha “I’m sorry about that, Sasha, you know I wouldn’t have if I didn’t…”

“It’s all right, Zolf,” Sasha said, waving a hand. “I know why you did it.”

“Well. Yeah. Um. Still. Sorry about that. So I went to find the Harlequins but there were a few hiccups along the way,” he waved a hand at his hair and Oscar snorted. It was just like Zolf, to downplay his literal argument with a god, but Oscar had not been present when it happened and Zolf was close mouthed about the details.

He couldn’t imagine it had been pleasant. Grizzop looked like he was going to ask questions, and of course he would be fascinated by exactly how one managed to break up with a god, but Sasha, bless her, reached out and squeezed his arm. Zolf didn’t notice. “After a month or two working for the Harlequins on my own, this one asked for me.”

“I made contact with them soon after communications broke down completely in Europe,” Oscar said. 

“I dunno if you’d call the group you got into contact with  _ Harlequins…”  _ Zolf muttered. 

Oscar shot a look at Grizzop, who flicked an ear. “Not  _ those _ idiots?” 

Oscar smiled. “Yes, _ those _ idiots. Doing a little better since your encounter with them, Grizzop, I suspect they might have taken notes from you.”

“They could hardly do worse.”

“Well. Quite. They managed to get me in touch with what remained of the faculty from Prague. Imagine my surprise when I found out Zolf was with them.”

“You weren’t surprised at all,” Zolf said, and Oscar shrugged, smiling a little. 

“You do have a habit of finding competent people, Zolf.”

“Took a bit of wrangling to get Curie and the others to trust him, what with him being Aphophis’ and all that but…”

“Where  _ are  _ the meritocrats?” Grizzop said. “Being utterly useless somewhere? I mean surely a big old dragon could do something about the…”

“Out of the picture,” Oscar said, firmly. “We think Guivres is infected, and the others are frightened. And, quite frankly, given their lack of initial response to this crisis and some other things that have come to light, the less we see or hear of them the better.”

Sasha frowned. “I mean, they helped me,” she said. “They let us have the heart of Aphrodite. Without it I…”

Oscar glanced up in time to see Zolf wince. “They did,” he said, slowly. “But I will remind you that you were attacked on your way to the temple. Someone aside from us knew that we were retrieving the heart.”

“What, you think  _ Apophis  _ wanted the heart of Aphrodite to get taken by our enemies?” Grizzop’s eyes were wide and his voice high and incredulous.

Wilde spread his hands. “Grizzop I don’t know  _ what _ to think any more. Literally all of our avenues of investigation have come up blank. We have no idea where the owner of that factory in Damascus went, we have no idea of the current whereabouts of Guivres. Approaching the meritocrats, what remains of them, when we are uncertain of their motives would be foolish in the extreme.”

“We’re it,” Zolf said, gruffly. “Us and Cel now, I guess. And Shoin’s the last lead we have.”

Oscar watched as Grizzop looked over at Sasha, then back at Oscar and Zolf. “We’re not giving up on Hamid and Azu,” he said. “They’re going to be coming back. Soon. Einstein seemed to think…”

“We can’t factor them into the plans,” Oscar said. “Every day we waste more people die, or are turned. We need to act  _ now.” _

“Aight then Wilde,” Sasha said, and Grizzop gave a nod. 

“Tell us what you need.”


	14. Smoke and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Plan Is Made

It was late evening by the time they’d finished planning - it was a long shot, going to the island, one that they simply hadn’t had the manpower for before now, but Oscar was confident, with Cel and Sasha and Grizzop on the team with Zolf, that they’d be able to deal with Shoin and his minions and find whatever information he had hidden in the depths of the island. 

He’d retreated to the back porch of the inn, the one that faced the sea. Rain continued to fall, less heavy than it had been for the past day or so. Oscar had a deep and sudden yearning to see the stars, the moon, the clarity of a night sky without clouds, and swallowed against the mess of feelings that wanted to escape out through his throat.

He fished his cigarette case out and lit one - there were very few left, supplies were so erratic, and he had been rationing them, as well as the good brandy, but tonight he felt a little indulgence was warranted.

He blew out a mouthful of smoke, watching it billow into the damp air, feeling the slight buzz of it in his veins.

A weight he’d been carrying for months didn’t lift exactly, but resettled around him, and with it a new set of worries, more urgent than the dull, pressing panic of a world in chaos. Now he was worried for individuals. For people he cared about. For the more immediate and visceral griefs that accompanied sending agents into the field.

“You right, Wilde?” Zolf’s voice from behind him wasn’t a surprise. They’d stood here more nights than Oscar cared to count, in quiet contemplation, in resentful silence, in comfortable familiarity.

“As all right as can be expected,” Oscar said, offering his cigarette case to Zolf, who raised an eyebrow, but took one, sparking it alight and blowing smoke out to mingle with the lingering traces of Oscar’s last exhale.

“You weren’t kidding about Grizzop,” Zolf said, after a moment. “That goblin has more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen. I get tired just lookin’ at him.”

Oscar chuckled softly. “Do you think you’ll be able to work with him?”

Zolf shrugged. “Easier than working with Bertie,” he said, and Oscar felt a pang of… not grief exactly. He didn’t miss Bertie as such, but he did long for the time when the most pressing of his problems was how to get a pompous aristocrat to reveal his secrets.

Those particular methods, that particular skillset, had been left rusting and unused for so long now that Oscar wondered, briefly, if he’d even be able to pull such a thing off any more. 

One finger reached up to trace the line of his scar, and he sucked in another lungful of smoke.

Probably best that he didn’t have to test them.

“You’re brooding. That’s my job.”

Oscar looked down at Zolf again, other feelings crowding out the memories clattering through his brain like tin soldiers. He would have to go with them, to Shoin’s island. Carter and Barnes would be back up, guarding the tunnel, ensuring they had an escape route. 

Oscar was going to be left here, alone.

Again.

“I don’t have to tell you to be careful over there,” he said.

Zolf’s eyes twinkled in the lamplight. Oscar realised he was standing far closer than his wont - obviously in order to reach the cigarette that had been offered. There could be no other reason. “No. You don’t.”

Oscar swallowed. Reached down until his fingers found Zolf’s. Looked back out towards the sea.

Zolf’s hand pressed into his, thumb running back and forth across Oscar’s knuckles, and Oscar’s head felt light as air.

It had been too long since he’d smoked. Obviously.

“Be careful, Zolf,” he said. 

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's it for this one. There may be a sequel, after all Hamid and Azu are still missing, and who knows how the battle through Shoin's dungeon will go without Hamid there to pull them out of the fire? But for now, a break, and a little soft Zoscar to tide us all over. Thanks so much for reading, commenting and kudosing. As always I am blown away by how lovely all of you are.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Wilde RIders, you give me amazing ideas. Always.


End file.
